By CHALMERS JOHNSON Tomdispatch.com /Alternet International Posted by (Bulatlat.com) The following is an introduction from Tom Engelhardt: Along with postcards of cowboys riding jackalopes and giant berries on flatcars, there’s a brand new entry in the American gigantism sweepstakes: an embassy complex to be built in Islamabad, Pakistan, for — if you assume the normal…
Category: International
Economy Loses 467,000 Jobs in June; Unemploymenht Edges Up to 9.5 Percent
By DEAN BAKER Truthout/Perspective International Posted by (Bulatlat.com) Unemployment among men is near its all-time high. The economy shed another 467,000 jobs in June, as the unemployment rate edged up to 9.5 percent. The rise in unemployment would have been higher, except 155,000 people left the workforce, pushing down the employed percentage of the population…
Obama, Medvedev, and the Demise of Nuclear Deterrence
By TAD DALEY and KEVIN MARTIN Truthout/Perspective International Posted by (Bulatlat.com) If our thousands of nuclear weapons actually do serve to deter, then why should we be concerned about a nuclear North Korea or a nuclear Iran? If they do not serve to deter, then why retain them at all? When South Korean President Lee…
‘A Comedy of Errors’: Why It’s Time to Get Rid of the So-Called Terrorist Watch List
By LILIANA SEGURA AlterNet International Posted by Bulatlat If the recent outbreak of right-wing gun violence wasn’t alarming enough, this week brought news that people whose names appear on the U.S. government’s terrorist watch list have somehow managed to purchase firearms at a frighteningly steady rate. Just how steady? According to a new report by…
Criminals Because We Worked
Now We See You, Now We Don’t
By Kathy Kelly Truthout International Posted by Bulatlat ‘In early June 2009, I was in the Shah Mansoor displaced persons camp in Pakistan, listening to one resident detail the carnage that had spurred his and his family’s flight there a mere 15 days earlier. Their city, Mingora, had come under massive aerial bombardment. He recalled…
America and Torture Have a Long and Painful History
By BEN EHRENREICH Truthout Posted by Bulatlat Perhaps we protest too much. Torture, after all, is a venerable American tradition. We were waterboarding captives in one of our earliest wars of occupation, the Philippine-American War, which cost as many as 1 million civilian lives. In 1902, Teddy Roosevelt himself wrote with laconic praise of “the…
Humanitarian Rhetoric and U.S. Imperialism in Iran: The Electoral Façade
By ANTHONY DiMAGGIO Counterpunch Posted by Bulatlat It is worth reflecting on one central question regarding Iran: why does the recent election enjoy so much attention in the U.S.? My research on Iran suggests that Americans’ attention to Iran revolves around two issues. More superficially, much of the Iran focus is motivated by the conflict…
Hot Air Versus Hard Facts: The Latest Torture Cover-Up Scam
By JAMES BOVARD Counterpunch International Posted by Bulatlat The Obama administration appears increasingly devoted to covering up the worst crimes of the Bush era. CIA chief Leon Panetta formally objected to federal judge Alvin Hellerstein who was considering releasing detailed information on 92 videotaped CIA torture sessions of detainees. Panetta asserted that releasing the written…
US-Peru FTA Sparks Indigenous Massacre
By TOM LOUDON Truthout International Posted by Bulatlat During the last week, deep in the Peruvian Amazon, confrontations between nonviolent indigenous protesters and police have left up to 100 people dead. The vast majority of the casualties are civilians, who have been conducting peaceful demonstrations in defense of the Amazon rain forest. For almost two…
A Wake-Up Call on Water Use
By GLORIA GOODALE Truthout International Posted by Bulatlat A long-running resource issue finally trickles down to more consumers. Move over carbon, the next shoe to drop in the popular awareness of eco-issues is the “water footprint.” That’s the word in environmental circles these days. Just as the image of a heavy carbon foot made it…